E.A.T Update: Latest Google Algorithm Change

This update isn’t exactly new. It was first announced in August of 2018.. It is part of a sweeping effort from Social Medias, Search Engines, And Referral sites in order to produce relevant, quality content.. Remember after the election–all this talk of Russian troll farms…. Then this talk of fake news. Well, this is a large reason for Google’s new E.A.T update…

Think about it this way: if search engines supplied irrelevant or poor search results, then the searchers would quickly become annoyed and would stop using them. That’s why Google is constantly updating its algorithms to improve search quality. The better the quality-then the happer the searcher. The happier the searcher, the better the search engine.

Hence the name, search engine.

Ironic to the etymology, the search engines don’t want the searcher to go around in circles. Google wants the searcher to find what they are looking for the first time.

If a searcher hits a website and quickly bounces off, this is a good indication to Google that the content was poor quality or was irrelevant to the search term.

Furthermore, Google also employs Quality Raters. There are thousands of Quality Raters across the world. They are people who visit websites and rate the websites according to specific criteria. From these recommendations, Google uses them as a means of choosing which content to deliver to users. The recommendations have an indirect effect on search results.

In summary, the E.A.T update focuses on Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Particularly, Google has been extra-scrutinizing toward the health and finances industries. Google calls these Your Money Your Life (YMYL) industries.

Transparency is also another key factor in determining Google rankings. Below are included a short list of tips and strategies to stay up to date with the latest Google algorithm change.

Expertise:

The key is to have knowledge and proficiency in the industry. Content creators who wander across a variety of subjects, constantly switching between topics–they are the ones who are going to be most greatly penalized.

An example is Einstein Marketer. His organic rankings grew as a result of the update. And that is because he is constantly publishing fresh and new content under the umbrella of digital marketing. Although he might switch between various subtopics of digital marketing, he always stays on the topic and finds a way to incorporate the subtopic into digital marketing.

Technical proficiency is another key indicator to Google that the content is expert. If you have a medical website that isn’t utilizing industry relevant terminology, then that is an indicator to Google that the content is not expert.

Accolades. This is another way to indicate to Google that this content is written by an expert. Having an about us page with a list of accolades is a great way of indicating expertise.

A large following/personal branding. Here is another opportunity to show Google expertise and transparency. Including an author bio at the end of every content page shows Google that this is written by a pro who is not afraid to put his name out there. WordPress has a great plugin called Ultimate Author Box Lite that ads an author bio to the end of all the content.

Authoritativeness

Google utilizes the judgement of external sources (with high authority) as a sign of content authority. For example, backlinks and Quality raters are two ways Google judges how relevant content is to a specific niche. Backlinks are the easiest way.

What is a backlink?

There are two types of backlinks. Whitehat, and blackhat. Whitehat backlinks are when the external website approves of the backlink. Blackhat are unknowing backlinks where the third party sites’ domain or page has expired and the backlink is done without their knowledge or permission. Google penalizes for blackhat backlinks.

Trustworthiness:

This is safety, security, and transparency. Trust is MASSIVE to Google. Trust is like jet fuel for SEO. This is particularly true for websites that accept payments.

The key is to have a website with a SSL certificate. The way to check if a website has a security certificate is to look at the top where the URL is and see if there is a green lock next to it. Or, another way to check is to see if before the URL there is HTTPS instead of HTTP. The S stands for Secure.

For sites that accept payments, it is vitally important to display a security badge. Not only do security badges improve conversion rate, but they also increase authority with Google. Norton, McAfee, all provide security badges for low cost.

Also, many sites do not have spam blockers, or let spammy comments sit. Google sees spammy comments as an indication the site is not well maintained and therefore, not very trustworthy.

Conclusion

The key is to produce quality content in a specific niche. Google rewards sites that searchers like. So the more a site focuses on user experience (UX), the better it is eyes of Google. This is a broad effort that social media and Google is implementing as part of a strategy to prevent low quality content from falling under the eyes of its users. Facebook and Instagram also reward users who produce and share content that gets lots of views, tags, likes, and shares. This is part of a feedback loop telling the algorithms to, ‘SHOW MORE.’ Another strategy is to like and comment on posts, because this doubles the engagement and increases the amount it would be showed on the platforms. It’s a sort of snowball effect that is created. The quality content that is well engaged gets pushed to the top while the crappy, uninteresting content gets pushed to the bottom.

At Precision Digital Media, we focus on strategies that keep up with the latest Google algorithm change. Since the beginning, we have been focusing on website packages that produce large amounts of content. Any questions, call (301) 364-9388 and ask for Michael Overzat.

Michael Overzat is the founder of Precision Digital Media. His background started when he worked for a large digital marketing and publishing agency called Action Media. He started Precision Digital as a means of helping small/medium sized businesses increase revenue, hire more, and scale up. He takes pride in seeing these companies grow to the point where they can hire more. Reach him at (301) 364-9388

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